QUEENSLAND PERFORMING ARTS CENTRE 23 AUGUST TO 5 SEPTEMBER
THE WORLD T
TO BRISBANE I THE WANDERER ABOVE THE SEA OF FOG, 1818 (OIL ON CANVAS) BY CASPAR DAVID FRIEDRICH, (1774-1840) HAMBURGER KUNSTHALLE, HAMBURG, GERMANY/ THE BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY
In recent years the perception of Queensland, both nationally and internationally, has changed dramatically. Acknowledged by media and public alike, this change has been driven by a combination of government initiative and vision, and daring programs in the visual and performing arts. Exhibitions featuring the art of Warhol, Picasso and Matisse, of rare masterpieces from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Prado in Madrid together with eclectic exhibitions such as the Valentino show have completely altered the way the world and our fellow Australians see the state of Queensland and the city of Brisbane. Queensland Performing Arts Centre, with invaluable support from Events Queensland, has played a major role in this extraordinary process, inaugurating exclusive seasons by some of the world’s greatest international performing arts companies appearing exclusively in Brisbane. First came the Paris Opera Ballet, then the National Ballet of Cuba. We have also hosted the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, and the electrifying Russian pianist Evgeny Kissin. Next comes the visit of not one but three great companies from the magnificent city of Hamburg. Queensland Performing Arts Centre welcomes these visitors whose exclusive appearance here in August 2012 will further enhance Brisbane’s already impressive reputation as a cultural capital.
INTERNATIONAL SERIES
INTERNATIONAL SERIES
The great port of Hamburg is the second largest city in Germany, the seventh largest city in the European Union and one of the most affluent in Europe.
I
n addition to being a mercantile powerhouse, Hamburg has an enviable cultural life with some forty theatres, sixty museums and over one hundred music clubs. It is also home to a great symphony orchestra, a celebrated opera house and a world renowned ballet company, all three of which will make their first appearance in Australia for an exclusive Brisbane season in August 2012. Australian conductor Simone Young is both Musical Director of the Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra and General Manager of the Hamburg State Opera. Young will lead the former in a performance of Mahler’s mighty Symphony No. 2, Resurrection, with a Queensland chorus and international soloists. A renowned interpreter of the operas of Richard Wagner, Simone Young will also conduct two concert performances by the Hamburg State Opera of Das Rheingold, the first work in his epic Ring Cycle. The magnificent Hamburg Ballet, led by its A rtistic Director and Principal Choreographer John Neumeier will present the Australian premiere of two of his finest works – Nijinsky Nijinsky, an hommage to the legendary Russian dancer, and his witty, elegant ballet version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
ELBPHILHARMONIE, HAMBURG © HERZOG AND DE MEURON
These remarkable guest performances form part of Queensland Performing Arts Centre’s International Series, bringing the world to Brisbane.
IMAGES. A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM AND NIJINSKY, BALLETS BY JOHN NEUMEIER, HAMBURG BALLET © HOLGER BADEKOW
T
he Hamburg Ballet is one of the great dance companies in the world. Its fame is due in no small measure to its leadership. In 1973 American dancer and choreographer John Neumeier was appointed Artistic Director. Under his leadership the company has achieved two of the rarest qualities in the world of the performing arts – stability and an unwavering commitment to innovation. It is a truly international company, with dancers drawn not only from Germany but also from twenty three other countries including America, France, Russia, Ukraine, Brazil and Australia. Neumeier has choreographed ballets for companies such as the Paris Opera Ballet, the Bolshoi, the Royal Danish Ballet, Britain’s Royal Ballet and American Ballet Theatre, and he continues to create works of great power and beauty. His musical sensibility is unique and his love of movement and the body is evident in all of the work he creates. Each year he presents a season as a tribute to his hero, the legendary Vaslav Nijinsky, the programs for which attract some of the finest dancers of our time. This legendary figure in the world of ballet brings his company to Australia for the very first time for this exclusive Brisbane season showcasing two of his most admired works, a playful version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and his thrilling, dramatic Nijinsky.
‘ For me, John Neumeier is a man of reason and passion. His creativity always surprises and captivates me because the universe he imagines is so rich and diverse.’
Brigitte Lefèvre
Director of Dance Paris Opera Ballet
The Hamburg Ballet A Midsummer Night’s Dream
S
hakespeare’s great comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of his most popular works, performed innumerable times in almost every country in the world and in a myriad of interpretations, from a spectacular 1934 outdoor staging in the Hollywood Bowl, a subsequent film and Peter Brook’s legendary 1970 production for the Royal Shakespeare Company which toured the world.
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM DREAM, BALLET BY JOHN NEUMEIER, HAMBURG BALLET © HOLGER BADEKOW
It has also provided lavish inspiration for composers and choreographers, including Benjamin Britten’s eponymous opera and George Balanchine’s ballet version using Felix Mendelssohn’s famous incidental music.
Neumeier sees the action existing on three levels and chooses his music and movement accordingly. For the lovers and the court scenes, it’s Mendelssohn. For the mysterious fairy world it’s works by Hungarian György Ligeti, one of the most important composers of the late twentieth century, and for the comic scenes, the mechanicals wheel on a barrel organ to grind out familiar street tunes. This is one of Neumeier’s most joyous creations, a rare combination of inspired concept, exquisite, haunting choreography and broad comedy. Appealing to audiences of all ages, it has been included in the repertoire of many internationally renowned companies including the Paris Opera Ballet.
That same music is also used by the Hamburg Ballet’s celebrated choreographer and Artistic Director John Neumeier in his ravishing version of this great classic tale of magic, mistaken identity and lovers’ quarrels.
QPAC and Events Queensland present
A Midsummer Night’s Dream The Hamburg Ballet - John Neumeier Choreography & Staging John Neumeier Music Felix Mendelssohn György Ligeti - traditional Mechanicals music Stage Design & Costumes Jürgen Rose Queensland Symphony Orchestra Conductor Simon Hewett Performances Thursday 30 August - Wednesday 5 September Playhouse, QPAC
The Hamburg Ballet Nijinsky
V
aslav Nijinsky was the first male superstar of ballet, a mythic dancer and a virtuoso who, during his short career, electrified audiences throughout Europe. Millions of words have been written about his legendary leaps, the intensity of his characterisations, each forged by the genius of his imagination. Born in Kiev in 1890 he began dancing with a circus at the age of seven. At nine he joined the Imperial Ballet School in St. Petersburg. His career was meteoric, brief and blazing like a comet, but by the time he was twenty he was diagnosed with schizophrenia and his mental health deteriorated. He relocated to neutral Switzerland during World War II. The last time he ever danced in public was one evening at the Suvretta House Hotel near St. Moritz. Choreographer John Neumeier, a passionate historian of the Ballets Russes with which Nijinsky first danced in the west, takes this event as his starting point as Nijinsky’s fevered brain recalls the great ballets in which he danced and some of those he choreographed. Nijinsky is a haunting, insightful memorial to the greatest of male ballet dancers, an artist whose innovations, like those of the choreographer himself, are still powerful today.
NIJINSKY BALLET BY JOHN NEUMEIER, NIJINSKY, HAMBURG BALLET © HOLGER BADEKOW
QPAC and Events Queensland present
Nijinsky The Hamburg Ballet - John Neumeier Choreography Stage Design & Costumes John Neumeier Music Frédéric Chopin, Robert Schumann, Nikolaj Rimskij-Korsakow Dmitri Shostakovich Performances Sunday 26 August - Tuesday 28 August Playhouse, QPAC
THE RHINEMAIDENS TEASING ALBERICH ALBERICH, ILLUSTRATION FROM THE RHINEGOLD AND THE VALKYRIE, 1910 (COLOUR LITHO) BY ARTHUR RACKHAM (1867-1939) PRIVATE COLLECTION/ THE STAPLETON COLLECTION/ THE BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY
Hamburg State Opera with the Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra Das Rheingold
R
ichard Wagner (1813 – 1883) was one of the towering figures of the nineteenth century. Polymath, poet, philosopher, political activist, essayist, theatre director, musical theorist, conductor and composer, he is however best known for his operas and especially for his great masterpiece, the epic Der Ring des Nibelungen, or simply, the Ring. This mighty work consists of four separate operas designed to be performed sequentially although they are occasionally given singly. Wagner spent twenty-six years on the composition of the Ring. Although Das Rheingold comes first in the series, it was the last to be composed. It acts as a prologue that sets in motion the whole tale of the theft of the magic gold from the Rhinemaidens, the vainglorious and eventually fatal ambitions of the gods,
the curse on the gold, the murder of the giant Fasolt by his brother Fafner and the fateful bargain struck by Wotan, the leader of the gods, that unleashes the dramatic events of the subsequent operas. Simone Young was the first woman ever to conduct the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and in 1999 came another first when she led that same orchestra to become the first female musician to conduct a complete Ring Cycle. She has also conducted complete performances in Berlin and most recently in Hamburg. In Brisbane she will direct not only her Hamburg State Opera ensemble but also a number of illustrious guest singers, many of whom have performed at Bayreuth, the theatre where the first complete Ring Cycle was seen in 1876 and which has become a pilgrimage shrine for dedicated Wagnerites.
QPAC and Events Queensland present
Das Rheingold
LEFT. SIMONE YOUNG, © KLAUS LEFEBVRE. ABOVE. RICHARD WAGNER, THE BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY.
by Richard Wagner Concert performance The Hamburg State Opera with the Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra presented in association with Brisbane Festival Conductor Simone Young Soloists Wotan Falk Struckmann Fricka Anna Larsson Alberich Eike Wilm Schulte Donner Jan Buchwald Freia Vida Mikneviciute Froh Chris Lysack Loge Jürgen Sacher Mime Peter Galliard Erda Deborah Humble Woglinde Ha Young Lee Wellgunde Maria Markina Flosshilde Anne-Beth Solvang Fasolt Tigran Martirossian Fafner Adrian Sampetrean Performances Thursday 23 August Saturday 25 August Concert Hall, QPAC
LEFT. MORNING, 1808 (OIL ON CANVAS) BY PHILIPP OTTO RUNGE (1777-1810) HAMBURGER KUNSTHALLE, HAMBURG, GERMANY/ THE BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY BELOW. GUSTAV MAHLER, EMIL ORLIK (1870-1932), WIEN MUSEUM, KARLSPLATZ, VIENNA, AUSTRIA.
Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra with the Hamburg State Opera Mahler Symphony No.2 Resurrection
I
n 1891, 30-year-old composer and conductor Gustav Mahler took up the baton as First Conductor of the Hamburg Opera. The Hanseatic city would be his home for the next six years.
Mahler under his wing in Hamburg and Mahler succeeded him as conductor of the Philharmonic and got his first real taste of conducting, in the concert hall as well as in the opera theatre, in Hamburg.
Hamburg nurtured Mahler and provided him with opportunities that would turn out to be crucial to his development as a composer and conductor. Mahler’s monu ment a l Second Sy mphony (Resurrection) and expansive Third Symphony were composed during his Hamburg years.
An idealist and a perfectionist, Mahler drilled the Hamburg players and accepted nothing less than peerless performances from them night after night.
The ethereal closing chorus of the Resurrection (‘Rise up, yes you will rise up’), one of the most transcendent moments in all music, came to Mahler in a flash of inspiration following the memorial service to the great conductor Hans von Bülow in Hamburg’s vast baroque church of St. Michael. Von Bülow conducted the Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra in the first ever performances of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde and Die Meistersinger. He took the youthful
QPAC and Events Queensland present
Symphony No. 2 in C Minor, Resurrection by Gustav Mahler Soloists from the Hamburg State Opera with the Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra presented in association with Brisbane Festival
He also took his Hamburg musicians on tour. In 1892 Mahler led players and singers from the Hamburg Opera to London for a season of Wagner operas, including two performances of Das Rheingold. A tour that would go down in history, these were the first ever performances of Wagner’s Ring at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. It seems entirely appropriate that both of these masterpieces by Wagner and Mahler are to be performed by this same orchestra during their first ever appearances in Australia and what is in effect Mahler’s orchestra, is to be conducted by an Australian.
Conductor Simone Young Hamburg State Opera Soloists Anna Larsson Ha Young Lee Performance Friday 24 August Concert Hall, QPAC
THE
THE WAGNER PREMIERE EXPERIENCE
MAHLER SYMPHONY NO. 2 GALA EVENING
THE NIJINSKY PREMIERE EXPERIENCE
THE DREAM PREMIERE EXPERIENCE
The first opera of Wagner’s epic Ring Cycle, the powerful Das Rheingold is the centrepiece of the majestic Wagner Premiere Experience.
In the tradition of QPAC’s exclusive Gala Evening events, a one-off performance of Gustav Mahler’s monumental Symphony No. 2, Resurrection w ill for m the centrepiece of the Hamburg Gala Evening - an elegant celebration of German excellence that will showcase the beauty of Hamburg and its brilliant artistic legacy.
Over more than four decades, legendary choreographer John Neumeier has established The Hamburg Ballet as one of the world’s great dance companies.
Under the direction of the legendary John Neumeier many of the finest dancers from across the globe have performed with this innovative company. The Company’s brilliant performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream will be presented with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Simon Hewett.
CORRECT AT TIME OF PRINTING.
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, BALLET BY JOHN NEUMEIER, HAMBURG BALLET © HOLGER BADEKOW
Attending the premiere of Das Rheingold - an inspiring concert performance of Wagner’s first Ring Cycle opera performed by the Hamburg State Opera with the Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra - guests at the exclusive opening night event will enjoy complimentary pre-concert drinks and exclusive access to the Hamburg Garden for a post-show reception with Simone Young and members of the Opera and Orchestra.
More than 120 years after composer and conductor Gustav Mahler took up the baton as First Conductor of the Hamburg Opera, his second symphony will be performed in QPAC’s Concert Hall by the Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra with soloists from the Hamburg State Opera conducted by one of Australia’s most distinguished musicians, the internationally acclaimed, Simone Young.
The Nijinsky Premiere Experience on Sunday 26 August will celebrate the company’s very first visit to Australia and guests are invited to immerse themselves in Neumeier’s world of power and beauty. Attending the Australian premiere of Nijinsky, VIP guests will enjoy complimentary interval drinks and exclusive access to the Hamburg Garden for a post-show reception with fine wines and canapés savoured alongside John Neumeier and members of The Hamburg Ballet.
Following the performance, guests will adjourn to the beautiful Hamburg Garden created especially for the evening, where they will enjoy the finest wines and sumptuous dining. Simone Young and the members of the Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra and Hamburg State Opera will be invited to join each table.
Opening night guests are invited to be a part of the inner circle during The Dream Premiere Experience on Thursday 30 August. At this Australian premiere performance event, VIP guests will enjoy complimentary inter val drinks and exclusive access to the Hamburg Garden for a post-show reception with fine wines and canapés, meet John Neumeier and dancers of The Hamburg Ballet, Simon Hewett and musicians of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra.
THE WAGNER PREMIERE EXPERIENCE
MAHLER SYMPHONY NO. 2 GALA EVENING
THE NIJINSKY PREMIERE EXPERIENCE
THE DREAM PREMIERE EXPERIENCE
Opening Night Thursday 23 August 8.00pm – Midnight Concert Hall and Hamburg Garden QPAC $95 incl gst
Friday 24 August 6.45pm – Midnight Concert Hall and Hamburg Garden QPAC Gala Evening Individual $1,100 inc gst Gala Evening Table $10,000 inc gst
Opening Night Sunday 26 August 3.00pm – 7.00pm Playhouse and Hamburg Garden QPAC $95 incl gst
Thursday 30 August 7.30pm – 11.30pm Playhouse and Hamburg Garden QPAC $95 incl gst
MAHLER SYMPHONY NO. 2 GALA EVENING ENQUIRIES 07 3842 9706
GALA EVENING TABLE $10,000 including GST
GALA EVENING INDIVIDUAL $1,100 including GST
TAX DEDUCTION
Includes attendance at table by 2 artists 8 premium performance tickets 8 places at the pre performance reception interval and Gala Evening post performance dinner
Includes 1 premium performance ticket 1 place at the pre performance reception interval and Gala Evening post performance dinner
The voluntary tax deductible donation will enable QPAC to continue to present the very best of international performances to Queensland audiences. A receipt will be issued for tax deductibility purposes. Claims should be made under the title Queensland Performing Arts Trust.
Cost of ticket and Gala Evening package $7000, voluntary tax deductable donation $3,000.
Cost of ticket and Gala Evening package $700, voluntary tax deductable donation $400.
DAS RHEINGOLD Thursday Saturday
23 August 25 August
8.00pm 8.00pm
Concert Hall Concert Hall
MAHLER SYMPHONY NO. 2 Friday
24 August
8.00pm
Concert Hall
Opening Night Sunday
26 August
3.00pm
Playhouse
Monday Tuesday
27 August 28 August
7.30pm 7.30pm
Playhouse Playhouse
NIJINSKY A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM Opening Night Thursday
30 August
7.30pm
Playhouse
Friday Saturday
31 August 1 September
7.30pm 2.00pm
Playhouse Playhouse
Saturday Sunday
1 September 2 September
7.30pm 3.00pm
Playhouse Playhouse
Monday Tuesday
3 September 4 September
7.30pm 7.30pm
Playhouse Playhouse
Wednesday
5 September
7.30pm
Playhouse
TICKET PRICES PREMIUM
HAMBURG PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA $195
THE HAMBURG BALLET $160
A RESERVE
$160
$130
B RESERVE C RESERVE
$130 $95
$95 -
HAMBURG SEASON PACKAGES - SAVE UP TO $50 COMBINE ONE CONCERT AND ONE BALLET
$305
BOTH BALLET BOTH CONCERTS
$270 $340
BOOK NOW
qpac.com.au or phone 136 246 Gala Evening bookings 07 3842 9706 Prices include GST where applicable. A transaction fee may apply. Concession applies for Australian Pensioners, full-time students & 16 years and under with a valid ID. CORRECT AT TIME OF PRINTING.
QUEENSLAND PERFORMING ARTS CENTRE Cnr Grey & Melbourne Streets, South Bank, Queensland PRESENTING PARTNERS
THIS PAGE / BACK COVER. A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, BALLET BY JOHN NEUMEIER, HAMBURG BALLET © HOLGER BADEKOW
PARTNERS
THE
HAMBURG SEASON
Puck: If we shadows have offended, think but this, and all is mended, that you have but slumbered here while these visions did appear. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DR EA M
QUEENSLAND PERFORMING ARTS CENTRE 23 AUGUST TO 5 SEPTEMBER